


A Knight in Shining Armour

by calloftherunningtide



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Community: sarahjane_fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1366846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calloftherunningtide/pseuds/calloftherunningtide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Jane Smith does <i>not</i> need a knight in shining armour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Knight in Shining Armour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hhertzof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/gifts).



> This story was originally written for [the Sarah and Harry Ficathon 2008](http://sarahjane-fic.livejournal.com/329625.html).
> 
>  **Prompt:** Harry picking up Sarah Jane in Aberdeen and / or Sarah Jane getting used to life back on Earth.

It was raining when Harry arrived in Aberdeen; a ceaseless deluge which had turned the sky grey and driven the city’s population indoors. Although she was doing her best to shelter beneath a bus stop, Sarah Jane was soaked to the skin by the time he pulled up to the curb next to her. 

Harry would never be presumptuous enough to assume that he could read Sarah Jane Smith like a book, he knew that he could, at the very least, decipher her emotions and actions with more ease than most. The adventures they’d shared together had forged a strong bond between them. Today, however, her emotions were plain for all to see. Her face was pale and drawn. Her smile was a weak ghost of the one that he was used to. She was _devastated_. Not just by the Doctor’s departure, but by how sudden it had been. Torn between concern for his friend and the strange sort of pride which bubbled up in his chest when he realised that she’d chosen to phone him first, Harry had abandoned his laboratory without a second thought as soon as he’d heard from her.

Automatically, he pulled off his coat and draped it around her shoulders.

“A veritable knight in shining armour,” she joked. It did very little to protect her against the elements, but it was the thought which counted and it _had_ been a rather valiant gesture.

“I do my best,” he replied with a smile, “Come on, old girl. Let’s get you home.”

“You’re going to drive me all the way home?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a long way, Harry. And aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“It can wait,” he assured her. He’d probably catch hell for this when he finally got back to the base, but he wasn’t about to abandon her now. (He was, nevertheless, glad that the Doctor had only been off by a few hundred miles. An unexpected trip to Timbuktu would have been very difficult to explain to his superiors.)

“Thank you,” she said, taking his hand to give it a brief squeeze. “I’m glad you’re here, Harry.”

She didn’t let go of his hand. Harry waited, his heart in his throat, for her to continue speaking.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” she confessed after a long moment of silence, “Life on Earth, after everything I’ve seen? How am I supposed to forget it? How am I supposed to get back to normal?”

“I managed it,” Harry pointed out, as the rain continued to cascade down around them.

“Oh, that’s true,” she laughed, trying to brush her dripping hair out of her face. Without thinking about it, Harry raised a hand to help, smoothing a few damp strands back from her cheek.

“I’ll help,” he informed her, “I’m your knight in shining armour, remember?”

Sarah Jane smiled, sliding her arms around his waist.

“You know,” she murmured, “When you say it like that, I can almost believe it.”

***

 _No_. It didn’t happen like that.

Sarah Jane was still half in love with the Doctor and Harry was far too practical to fill his head with notions of romantic reunions and kisses in the rain.

She _did_ call him, but only after a failed attempted to get in touch with her Aunt Lavinia. And Harry _did_ drive to Aberdeen to rescue her, but, against all expectations, it was sunny when he finally arrived. The traffic had been good, but he struggled to find a place to park. Sarah Jane had waited on the pavement for a while, but gave up ten minutes into Harry’s prolonged struggle with the parking meter. He finally found her reclining in the shade beneath a clump of sparse trees, using her coat as a pillow.

“You didn’t have to come yourself, you know,” she said, shading her eyes with a hand as she sat up, “I don’t need a knight in shining armour. I just thought UNIT should know, in case they ever needed to get in touch with the Doctor at again.”

“Oh, I couldn’t leave you to struggle back from Aberdeen on your own, old girl,” Harry protested.

“ _Struggle_? I’m more than capable of finding my way to the train station, Harry! And don’t call me that.” She got to her feet and pointed to the box next to her. “Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. Can you carry this to the car?”

It turned out to be the first and last thing she allowed him to do for her that day. Sarah Jane had been bruised by her sudden separation from the Doctor and made up for her wounded pride by treating Harry rather abominably. He didn’t pretend to understand her motives, but she seemed to find berating him vaguely cathartic. By pretending she didn’t need him, she was able to pretend that she didn’t need the Doctor either. She was able to pretend that she didn’t need anyone.

Something like that, anyway. He was a doctor of medicine, not a psychologist.

(Sarah Jane had pointed out as much when he attempted to get her to open up about her feelings. They’d stopped for lunch at a motorway service station and he’d thought it only proper to inquire about her health and general wellbeing, given the circumstances. He soon wished he hadn’t bothered.)

They parted courteously on Aunt Lavinia’s doorstep. Harry promised to tell UNIT what she’d told him – which wasn’t very much, really – and she promised to phone him soon. Returning to normalcy was going to be difficult and even the supremely stubborn Miss Smith couldn’t deny that someone who’d recently made the same transition would be the best person to help.

He’d do his best not to disappoint her. The Doctor had done enough of that already.

***

Harry took Sarah Jane to the supermarket to buy bread and milk and other sundries, which she’d simple taken for granted while on the TARDIS. He helped her to find proper – albeit freelance – journalism work and gave her advice on the purchase of her first car. They had lunch in various restaurants across London and bickered about the bill – _“Oh, for goodness sake, Harry, this isn’t the Dark Ages! At least let me pay half …”_ – and how much they should leave as a tip.

It was all very normal. In fact, it was almost _domestic_. Admittedly, she ignored most of what he said, but a little bit managed to stick. Harry contented himself with that. He’d been right, that day in Aberdeen. She thought she didn’t need anyone – and often went out of her way to prove as much – but that wasn’t the case. She _did_ need someone. Not an exotic alien in a miraculous blue box, but plain old Harry Sullivan, who wasn’t going anywhere.

When Sarah Jane moved into her own house after six months back on Earth, it was Harry who helped unload the boxes and arrange the furniture. Afterwards, they sat on the bench in her new back garden, chatting about the past as they toasted the future. Her wine-stained lips were slightly parted and her eyes shone in the light from the lamp above them. He wanted to kiss her, more than he ever had before, but then he remembered the other man who’d seen her eyes sparkle that way, in starlight rather than electric light.

He made his excuses so hastily that Sarah Jane thought he was ill. Harry left her alone in her echoing house, surrounded by boxes, and wished he was brave enough to stay. But how could he possibly compete with someone who had shown her the universe?

***

The next time they met, it was in a coffee shop in Camden. Sarah Jane was watching the world go by over the top of her newspaper, crumbling a scone between her fingertips. She seemed oddly distracted, answering his questions in monosyllables. Harry’s tea grew cold as he watched her, his frown growing deeper by the moment.

In the end, they left without finishing their drinks. She was going to visit Lavinia and Harry offered to give his friend a lift. For once, she didn’t protest. (Well, not _much_ , anyway.)

“Aunt Lavinia is going to a convention in Geneva,” she said, after a minute of painfully drawn out silence, “To present her latest paper.”

“Are you going to go with her?” he asked, manoeuvring the car through the busy London streets. Anything to keep her talking. Anything to draw out a potential explanation.

“I think so. My editor would certainly like me to do a piece on the conference.”

“But you don’t want to go?”

“No, no, I _do_ ,” she said quickly, “But …”

 _But travelling around Europe is hardly the same as travelling around the galaxy?_ That must be it. He tried to imagine her saying ‘but I’d miss you’ and had to struggle to conceal a laugh. In another world, perhaps, but certainly not in _this_ one.

They completed the rest of the journey in silence. Sarah stared out the window and Harry fancied that he could see her gaze drifting towards the sky and the unseen stars. Towards the man who was out there somewhere, equally unseen.

When he parked the car, however, Sarah moved her gaze away from the horizon, studying his face with peculiar intensity.

“Would you like to come in?”

“And meet your aunt?” he asked, eyes widening in surprise.

“Well, yes,” said Sarah, and he was surprised to find that she was studying her clasped hands intently now, instead of meeting your eyes. “You don’t _have_ to. I just thought you might enjoy it.”

“You’ve told me a lot about her ...”

“And I’ve told _her_ a lot about you,” she finished for him, looking up.

“Really?”

“Oh, don’t sound so surprised, Harry,” she laughed, “You’re my friend. And we _have_ been spending a lot of time together.”

Her lips – not wine-stained this time, but still warm and red and terribly inviting – curved into a gentle smile.

“My knight in shining armour,” she joked.

Harry laughed. Impulsively, he reached out and took her hand.

“You know,” he said, “When you say it like that, I can almost believe it.”


End file.
